Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Audiophilander (A) on March 21, 2006 at 01:19:31

In Reply to: Re: Actually... posted by Jeff Starrs on March 20, 2006 at 05:41:43:

I saw little in the way of "hip" rhetorical sophistication; it came across more like humbug in a smug-ular vein (to paraphrase Mad's old slogan), if you know what I mean.

>>> "...if, as they seem to imply, the film is just a 'product' of the machine whilst it's message seems to be the opposite, then that leaves the world a bleak place." <<<

Well, CJ & OG may not be aware of this, but the world is already bleak place; if you doubt it, just turn on the news. As cautionary films and literature go, Moore's story & Wachowski's screenplay is no bleaker than Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 or the cautionary allegories in George Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984.

I'm not sure where all of this Hollywood "machine" rhetroric is coming from, unless there's a ghost in it that Japanese animators haven't recovered or a Son of Deus ex machina from Mel Gibson lurking about. ;^)

The movie industry can be faulted for being too predictable (trendy) at times in the effort to mirror popular themes and/or target certain demographics. In that regard, I guess Hollywood is manipulative and machine-like, but I'm of the opinion that film producers are fully aware that they can guarantee sizeable profits from movies which go against the grain through the publicity that controversial themes generate.

For instance, The Passion was controversial AND manipulative, but through ingenious marketing, this film and it's producers were the beneficiary of LOADS of free publicity; it made a killing at the box-office.

Narnia, another example of manipulation, was a poorly made, logic challenged, Disney-ized flick based on the popular work of C.S. Lewis. It also generated a lot of free (word of mouth) publicity as a christian-friendly, "safe" fantasy film for god-fearing parents to take their Harry Potter crazed kids to see.

V for Vendetta's bleak tale is politically rather than spiritually manipulative; it's allegorical subtext is timeless, but feels so blatantly contemporary that some will undoubtably find it's cautionary premise offensive. However, this film is no more reflective of the Hollywood "machine" that produced it than Mel Gibson's Aramaic bloodletting or Narnia's mythological characters bowing to the "sons & daughters of Eve."

>>> "I think it was just a 'hip' critic ploy (critics are like that)but I'll see the film first before committing myself and am looking forward to it." <<<

Good for you!

BTW, I tend to appreciate critics who are clever over those who try to appear sophisticated through use of subtlety and smugness; I'm even less impressed with critics who fall back on playing the in-joke game. Note: These are critics tend to think so much of their deftless prose that they believe everyone regularly reads their columns and should be instinctively be able to divine their genius & decipher where the critique is headed.

Sorry about the verbosity, Jeff, but the bottom line is that we're basically in agreement here.

Cheers,
AuPh